


Ghosts of What Might Have Been

by TulePubPirate



Category: Final Fantasy X, Final Fantasy X & Final Fantasy X-2, Final Fantasy X-2
Genre: Brothers, Guardians - Freeform, M/M, One-Shot, Soul-Crushing Sadness, Why did I even do this to myself?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-17
Updated: 2014-06-17
Packaged: 2018-02-04 23:44:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1797715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TulePubPirate/pseuds/TulePubPirate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Isaaru thinks over what would have become of his family had Lady Yuna not confronted Spira's darkest truth at Zanarkand before him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ghosts of What Might Have Been

It was evening in Zanarkand. The tourists had finally been flushed out, and most of the sphere hunters as well, once they realized there were not many spheres to be found in the ruins. The only soul besides Yuna remaining in the city appeared to be Isaaru, sitting on the ledge overlooking the dome, near the campfire Yuna and her guardians had once used. He seemed to be lost in thought, with a troubled expression on his face. When he didn’t respond to her calling his name, Yuna climbed up the hill towards him. “Isaaru? Is that you? What’s wrong?” 

“Lady Yuna,” he said, briefly looking her way before turning again to stare out into the ruins. He hesitated for a long moment, and then asked her, quietly, “Is there any way you could…tell me what happened to make you change your mind? In Zanarkand? From one former summoner to another?”

He still wasn’t looking at her, so Yuna took the time to study his face. He looked so—desolate, was the only word that came to mind. As if he fit right in with the ancient ruins all around them. As if he might turn to stone right there and remain in Zanarkand forever, a lone, empty figure, staring out at the stars. She had no choice but to tell him. 

So she did. She told him about the Unsent Lady Yunalesca, about generations of guardians sacrificed to form the final aeons, and summoners sacrificed in turn, and each new Sin born from the very aeon that defeated the old. About choosing a new path, and abandoning false hope. She faltered near the end, as Isaaru turned towards her, tears pricking his eyes, holding himself as if he was afraid he was going to fall apart. “Isaaru? Are you alright?” Perhaps it wasn’t the best question to ask, but Yuna wasn’t sure what else to do. Isaaru usually seemed so calm.

“Is that all true? About the guardians…becoming the Fayth for the Final Summoning?”

Yuna gasped, realizing what had upset Isaaru. “Your younger brothers were your guardians.”

Isaaru nodded, turning back to look at the once sacred city he had set out, just like her, to find. “If we had made it here before you…” He choked, shook his head, as if trying to shake out the thought. When he spoke again, his voice was steadier, more like the Isaaru she knew. “Our parents died when we were quite young. I was in charge of them—although I must admit, Maroda was always more responsible than me, but still. I…wanted to keep them safe. I didn’t want them to have to suffer anymore, fearing which family member would be taken away by Sin next.

“At first I thought, perhaps we could just stay away from Sin. Find some village Sin would overlook, or never get to—but there was no place in Spira free from Sin’s shadow. It was seeing the statue of Lord Braska in Bevelle, just one year into the Calm, that decided me. I wasn’t…naturally talented, but I was determined. I would become a High Summoner and defeat Sin, and then, even though I would be gone, Maroda and Pacce would be safe. And they…they would still have each other.”

“Isaaru…” Yuna sat down next to him on the ledge as he took a deep breath and continued.

“I had a fiancé, you know. When I told him, just before Lord Braska’s Calm ended, I was going to become a summoner, he—he left me. I tried to explain, to tell him that I was responsible for my brothers, that if I had the ability to make Spira safe for them I _had_ to do it! He was the one who told Maroda. I’ll never forget the look on his face; he looked so hurt, so haunted, and then Pacce bounced into the room and Maroda snapped into a smile and put an arm around me and said, ‘Look Pacce! Our big brother’s going to be a summoner! He’s going to stop Sin and save all of Spira!’” Isaaru had to stop and sniff back a few tears. “’And I’m going to be his guardian!’ My fiancé turned and stomped out the door right there, and never turned back. But Pacce, Pacce was so _proud_. He begged and begged us to let him become a guardian too, but we knew it was too dangerous. And he was just a boy—he didn’t know. He didn’t know about the Final Summoning. We didn’t have the heart to tell him. Maroda tried to scare him off with stories of vicious fiends and threats of sleeping on the road in the rain, but nothing worked. The day Maroda and I packed our bags, he finally came to me, crying, clinging to my leg. Begging me not to leave him behind, all alone. ‘You always told me brothers have to stick together!’ he said. And Maroda looked at me and shook his head, and tried to peel him off, but I knew I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t leave him. Maroda barely spoke to me the first week of our pilgrimage, but I think he understood.

“And now, all this,” Isaaru gestured at the dome swarming with pyreflies, his voice cracking with the effort of speaking through his tears. “That the goal I had rested all my hopes on, even if I had made it—it would have been Maroda. Of course it would have. We could never”—he choked on a sob—“never make Pacce sacrifice himself like that. But what would Pacce have left? His family plucked away from him piece by piece? What would I do? Call the Final Aeon and then leave him there in the Calm Lands?

“I couldn’t even leave him behind in from my pilgrimage! I couldn’t leave either of them behind!” Isaaru’s head dropped into his hands, his whole body shaking. Yuna wasn’t sure how to help him except to just listen. “How could I condemn Maroda to become Sin? How could I leave Pacce all alone? I would get all that way, make it to Zanarkand, gain the Final Aeon and then have to sit with it, never using it, never telling a soul, letting Spira burn!” Yuna placed an arm around him as his head sunk between his knees and he gasped through heaving sobs. It took a few minutes for Isaaru to cry himself out. “If you hadn’t stopped Sin,” he said, voice muffled through his clothes, “my whole family would have been broken, Lady Yuna.” He lifted his head, wiping at his nose with one sleeve. “How can I thank you enough? You saved me. You saved my brothers.” He sniffed loudly again, and managed to smile.

Yuna stood up, brushing off her legs. “I just made a choice, Isaaru,” she said, looking out herself at the Zanarkand skyline. “I think you could have made the same one too. After all, I did it for my own guardians. I couldn’t ask them to sacrifice their lives for nothing, after all that they’d done for me. You feel the same about your brothers, don’t you?”

Isaaru stood up next to her, wiping the last traces of tears off of his face. “I think, Lady Yuna, that you overestimate my strength, and underestimate your own. Countless other summoners could have made that choice, but only you did. You are truly an amazing person.” He bowed in the Yevon prayer. “I will forever be in your debt. If you ever need anything from me, I am yours.” 

Yuna smiled. “If you want to help me Isaaru, then cherish your brothers. I know Maroda is in Bevelle. Why don’t you go and see him for awhile? I’m sure he misses you. Pacce too.”

“I think you’re right. I will leave here then, and go to Bevelle to see him. Besides, the view of the city…it doesn’t seem quite so beautiful as it once did, when I first came here.” He gave the landscape one last, wary look. “I think it could make one drown in what-ifs. In the past, and in what could have been.”

“I think you’re right,” Yuna replied, looking instead at the small campfire remains at the foot of the hill. “I really think you could.”


End file.
